Dragon Sacrifice (The First Realm Book 3)

by Klay Testamark

  The woman climbed to her feet. She had quadrupled in mass and gained cow horns. The men remained on all fours. They were now gigantic wolves.

  “Impressive,” I said.

  “And that’s not all,” Elsa said. She leaped out of the saddle—

  —and transformed before she hit the ground.

  “Whoah,” I said.

  She loomed over me. She was a huge golden feline with long claws and a short mane. She’d kept the same cool blue eyes. They’d lost none of their intelligence.

  “Does that hurt?” I asked.

  She growled. “Every time.”

  She turned to her horse and drew a huge arming sword. She followed this with an equally oversized shield. I’d been wondering why she carried those things. Weapons are lighter than they look, but those would have been unwieldy in her normal form. Hertha the bison-girl, shouldered an enormous battleaxe.

  Everyone looked at me and my team.

  “Er,” I said. “Are we ready?”

  Cruix sneered. “What, were you expecting a show?”

  Vitus handed Arawn and Hafgan a grenade apiece. They rode up to the cave mouth and hurled them in. Foul smoke poured out of the cave. Then, a roar that echoed down the hills.

  Orvar drew back an arrow. Sandy steadied her aim. Elsa got her guard up and Heronimo drew his sword.

  “Steady,” I said. The creature would emerge at any moment.

  Another roar. This one shook in our chests and made the horses shy back. This was a big wyvern, maybe the biggest. It roared again and Sandy fired. The rifle kicked in her hands and the round zipped into the cave. It left a smoke trail. There was a crack as the bullet exploded.

  “I missed!” Sandy said.

  Movement. I looked and saw— “Up there! It’s up there!”

  The cave had another exit. It was high above and to the right. The wyvern perched on a ledge and screeched.

  “Fire!” Conrad said. “Fire!”

  Sandy reloaded. She aimed and fired but the wyvern leaped into space. It was the biggest wyvern

  I’d ever seen. A bolt of power slammed into the ledge, disintegrating it. My fellow hunters scattered. I threw up a shield and the rocks bounced off the air cushion. The wyvern flew away from the mountains and toward Heorot.

  “Stop it!” Orvar said. As Conrad’s crew raced for their horses, the rest of us put spurs and gave chase.

  Arawn drew his bow and sent a shaft speeding at the wyvern’s underbelly. Hafgan shot as well.

  Powerful as their bows were, the creature’s hide was much too thick. Mina drew a pistol and fired. No effect. My horse leaped over a tree stump and I had to focus on where I was going. Everyone had fanned out. We rode in a V formation behind the wyvern, sending up arrows and curses.

  “Grappling hook!” Magnus said. An assistant galloped alongside and took out his tools. When he swerved away, the dwarven chieftain’s hand now sported a clawlike gauntlet.

  Magnus launched the gauntlet. It wasn’t attached to his hand but to a spool of cable. The claw flew through the air, spurting fire. The wyvern swerved. The gauntlet rocketed past.

  Hertha was on foot, running as fast as we could ride. She snatched up a rock and hurled it, shattering the creature’s leg. It screamed but clawed for altitude.

  Meerwen leaped out of the saddle. She landed running and for a short time kept up with her mount. Then she jumped. The force of the jump left prints in the ground. It would have broken her horse’s back. Meerwen struck the wyvern’s wing and the creature flipped over in the air.

  “It’s going to crash!” Heronimo said.

  Meerwen rode the wyvern down, punching all the way. They tumbled for long seconds. They slammed into the ground and ploughed into the grass, digging a trench. The wyvern reached around and caught Meerwen in its teeth. She went rigid, casting stoneskin, and the creature whipped its neck and threw her into a stand of trees. The trees splintered.

  The wyvern got up. It lifted its broken right leg but it could still fight on three limbs. It cast its head around, searching for a target.

  “Alalalala! Yiyyiyiyi!”

  Elsa flipped over my head, trilling her battle cry. She cut at the wyvern’s throat, slashed and slashed again, but the creature’s hide was like steel. It pounced and she batted it away with her shield. It lunged and she rolled. Hertha attacked its right flank and the two wolves leaped on its back.

  “Out of the way! Out! Of the way!” Sandy said. “Can’t get a clear shot!”

  The wyvern batted Hertha away. It snaked its head around, butted one wolf, and snapped at the other. The wolves snarled but the wyvern got on its belly and rolled on its back. The wolves scattered.

  “Get clear!” Sandy said. There was a crack as she fired from less than ten feet away. The round exploded against the wyvern’s side but didn’t penetrate.

  “Shit!” she said. “Fucking shit rifle!” She was reloading as she cursed. The wyvern rolled back to its feet and fixed its eyes on her.

  “Back!” I said. I gathered fuel from the air and flung it in the wyvern’s face. The blast of flame drove it off, but only by a few feet. I swirled my arms, collecting more combustibles. Twigs and leaves added themselves to the fireball. I held it until Conrad dragged Sandy to safety. Then I released.

  I had to shield myself from the explosion, which catapulted the wyvern into the trees. I’d hoped it would impale itself on something, but no such luck. It had broken a few bones, as my Sight confirmed. Magnus opened his glove and a bolt of power caught the creature in the chest. The trees burst into flame. The heat could melt tungsten but the creature hobbled out of the wreckage, smoking but unburned.

  Arawn charged. The lance-tip exploded in the creature’s neck. No effect. Hafgan came in with another lance but this did nothing more than make the wyvern howl. Even its eyes were armoured, as Orvar found out. He and the other caprans showered it with arrows.

  I gathered my will and pulled on the bedrock. Stone blades emerged from the earth, sharper than anything. Their edges were just molecules thick. They could slide through a man’s arm like it wasn’t there and sever the limb so cleanly that there would be no pain. The blades shattered on the wyvern’s belly.

  “Sweet solstice,” Magnus said. “What is its skin made of?”

  Dragonhide, I almost said. The unbreakable armour that some serpents had been born with. It made them all but invincible. Killing just one was the stuff of legend.

  Still, our quarry was only a wyvern. It might have been a throwback, but it was not a monster from the elven dark age. We could kill it.

  “If we can’t break its skin, we’ll have to break its bones!” I said.

  “I can do that,” Meerwen said. She’d lost her cape and gained a black eye. She walking forward, wiping blood from her nose. The wyvern snapped at her and she punched it in the jaw.

  Internalized magic isn’t flashy. It doesn’t lent itself to fireballs or force fields. But when you’re a master of it... The uppercut smashed the wyvern’s jaws together. Teeth went flying. The creature blinked and Meerwen hooked another punch into its nose.

  Borlog laughed. “That’s how to do it!” He raised his club and smashed the wyvern’s good leg.

  Elsa threw a massive rock at the beast’s back. Hertha picked up a small tree and swung at its wing.

  “Harness,” Magnus said. His assistants removed his gauntlets and set to work assembling a frame around him.

  Hafgan rode past the wyvern, beating its ribs with a warhammer. Meerwen poured blows on the creature’s face, breaking teeth and making its skull ring.

  Magnus picked up a rock. It was huge, but the armature he wore gave him the strength to throw it. It bounced off the wyvern’s back and the creature screeched. Its tail skinned back to reveal a stinger. Wyverns don’t have stingers but this one did.

  “Get down!” I said.

  The wyvern hit Borlog in the chest. The spike came out his back and spurted yellow venom.

  Borlog stiffened.

&nbs
p; “Noooo!”

  Cruix the dragon landed on the wyvern’s back, bit down on its neck, and broke it.

  Chapter 19: Heronimo

  I drew my sword. “Assassins!”

  Cruix stumbled and I caught him. He blinked at the arrow-shaft in his shoulder. “What?”

  “Later!” I said. I held my sword in front of us. Prince Ardel had his sword out as well.

  “Behind me!” I said. An arrow thudded into the wall next to me. Another skittered on the cobblestones.

  “This way!”

  I turned to lead us back the way we had come, but hooded figures emerged from the crowd and drew wicked elven weapons.

  “Elendil assassins!”

  People scattered. I pulled Cruix into a dirty alley and the prince followed.

  “Whur—where are we going?” Cruix asked.

  “Somewhere we can make a stand,” I said. “Ardel, could this be a training exercise?” The

  Elendil were known to attack settlements. I’d lost my parents in such an attack.

  Ardel shook his head. “They’ve never hit a city before.”

  “Then they must be after you.”

  The alley led to a rusty gate. I cut the chain apart.

  “Then—then why did they shoot me?” Cruix asked.

  “Could they be after you?” I asked.

  He laughed. “The last dragon in the world? But everyone likes me!”

  He was having trouble staying upright. Slurring his words, too. The arrow was poisoned, of course, to shut down a human’s healing ability.

  There were apartments above us, facing away from the street. The stairs were narrow and well-suited to a lone defender.

  “Come on!” I said. We rushed up the stairs to the topmost apartment. “Open up!” I said.

  “Who is it?”

  “It is the prince!” I said. “He is chased by killers!”

  The door cracked open. An old woman peered through. So did a cat. I could smell many other cats.

  “Madame,” Ardel said. “I beg shelter for my friends. One of them is wounded.”

  “Don’t mind me,” Cruix said. “I’m just going to lean here.” He slumped against the wall and slid to his knees.

  The old lady started undoing the many door-chains. “Come in. Come in!”

  It smelled even worse inside. There were cats and kittens everywhere with no litterbox in sight.

  “Would you like some tea?” the woman asked.

  “Thank you, no,” Ardel said. “Is there another way out?”

  “Oho, no, dear me,” she said. She waved at the windows, which were all barred. “I live alone, you see.”

  “Simplifies things,” I said. “How long until we are missed back at the palace?”

  “An hour,” Ardel said. “Then they’ll send the garrison running.”

  “So we just need to survive that long.”

  There were people on the steps. They wore steel fox masks and carried elven blades.

  “Cruix was right,” I said. “I do say stupid things.”

  Angrod

  “Did you have to wear that?” Meerwen asked.

  “It’s guild formalwear,” I said. “I don’t see why not.”

  She meant the flowing robe as well as the sleeveless jacket with its stiff, flaring shoulders. Above all she meant the tall sugarloaf hat.

  “It looks like a penis,” she said.

  I waggled my eyebrows. “Does that excite you?”

  She shoved me. “You’re impossible.”

  Meerwen herself wore a blue-green dress that showed off her softer side, among other things. It cupped her breasts, hugged her hips, showed off her legs.

  “You look delicious, you know that?” I said.

  “Someone has to represent.”

  We rounded a corner and ran into Serrato Alva. He wore an identical dress.

  “Congratulations, Prince Angrod. You are the hero of the day.”

  “I didn’t kill the wyvern.”

  “No, but your people did. You must learn to take the credit on their behalf. It takes an army to conquer a kingdom, but only one man can be king. Deal with it.”

  He looked at Meerwen and sniffed. “I wear it better.”

  And he pranced away on high heels.

  “... huh,” I said.

  A door opened and Heronimo peeked out of the main hall. “Hey everyone! Angrod’s here!”

  Inside it was a blur of faces. Everyone wanted to shake my hand. Everyone wanted to clap me on the back. Serving girls kept offering me wine. I kept indulging them.

  “Fine work, fine work,” Ardel said. He looked like he’d had more than a few drinks himself. “I look forward to our future dealings.”

  “You aren’t mad that your brother didn’t win? Where is he, anyway?”

  He rubbed his neck. “He is away. Please don’t take offence. He pushes himself so very hard.”

  “Will he be all right?”

  “Oh yes. What’s important is that people are safe.”

  I nodded my agreement. A girl with a tray came by and I snagged another drink.

  “Veneanar,” Magnus said. “That was man’s work you did.”

  “Thank you.” I moved to shake his hand but he backed away.

  “Forgive me, but I’d rather not touch that silver hand of yours. It is an Artefact. A dwarf died making it.”

  “Is it dangerous?” I asked.

  “It has a will of its own. Has it spoken to you?”

  “N-not that I can remember. Tell me, why did you send me this arm? What was the thought behind this gift?”

  “The master prosthetist left a note. He said that the king of the elves would need the arm on the exact day that you lost yours.”

  He explained further. Sometimes, under intense pressure, dwarves would snap and create artefacts, magic items capable of almost anything. Dwarven masterworks, such as what Mina carried, were extremely powerful, but artefacts were of such quality that no sane craftsman could begin to duplicate them. They were priceless. And they were the stuff of legend.

  “You know, when I have a nervous breakdown I crawl into the bottle,” I said. “You dwarves do something productive!”

  He laughed without smiling. “It’s not all roses. Artefacts have been made out of leather and bone. Fresh leather and bone.”

  Magnus cleared his throat. “Arawn and I have been discussing the matter of immigration. Our people would be most useful in developing your new holdings. Dwarven irrigation techniques, Capran livestock strains, so on.”